NASA's space tweets are part of a larger conversation

As astronauts log on to Twitter, agency looks to broaden space communications

By Kevin McCaney

Jan 28, 2010

ONE SMALL TWEET: It might not qualify as a giant leap for mankind — and it’s sure not up to the standards of “Mr. Watson, come here!” — but a real-time tweet has been issued from orbit. On Jan. 22, astronaut T.J. Creamer, a flight engineer aboard the International Space Station, signed on to Twitter as @Astro_TJ and issued the first live missive from the great beyond, NASA said. Past tweets from space were e-mailed to the ground and then posted to a Twitter account.

True to the format, his message said nothing: "Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station — the 1st live tweet from Space! :) More soon, send your ?s" The universe might be infinite, but Twittered space messages are still limited to 140 sliced, diced and mutilated characters.

Nevertheless, the software upgrade that made it possible is pretty impressive. The system, which NASA calls the Crew Support LAN, taps into existing communications links — a Ku satellite band with 3 megabits/sec upstream and 10 megabits/sec downstream — to give astronauts Web access, along with the ability to better communicate with family and loved ones during their long stays on the space station. All that while traveling at 17,300 mph some 250 miles above the Earth.

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Reader Comments

Sat, Jan 30, 2010
Jeff
Houston

This is GCN, not "imatwitterfan", right?
No mention of how they achieved this real-time LAN?
How about the new vulnerabilities introduced by providing real-time access? Even if twitter is the only site they can access (doubtful), they are now one Javascript exploit away from being hacked.
And there are some theoretical ways to have office admin malware effect their control systems. How about writing about what it took to put this system in place and secure it?

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